Submitted by Amy Chu / Saint Mary's College of California on Tue, 08/03/2021 - 09:57
My Notes
Specific Course Information
Course Area and Number
CHEM 145
Institution
Mills College
Location
Oakland
Textbook
Inorganic Chemistry, 5th edition. Gary Miessler, Paul K. Fischer, Donald A. Tarr. ISBN-13: 9780321917799
Course Meetings and Time
Number of meetings per week
3 meetings / week
Time per meeting (minutes)
75 min / meeting
Number of weeks
15 weeks
Lab Associated
Yes, required, concurrently
Average Class Size
5 to 15
Typical Student Population
Chemistry majors and some environmental science majors
Description

Our CHEM145 is offered once every two years: TR 75 min synchronous lectures, F 4 h in-person lab. 

This is an introductory course of inorganic chemistry. The first part of the semester focuses on atomic structure, bonding, and symmetry. The second part of the semester emphasizes coordination chemistry of the transition metals. Assessments in this course are conducted through reading assignments, problem sets, oral exams, and a semester project. Students must also take the associated lab component to complete the course.  

I used Perusall (can be linked to Canvas) to assign reading every week and graded students based on their answers to my questions and comments/discussions that they posted. During the Zoom lectures I only ask them what they did not understand from the reading and dive into small group work for the bulk of the synchronous Zoom time. Several in-class activities are chosen from ViPEr.

I have only taught this course once during Spring of 2021 as a hybrid course: synchronous Zoom lectures and in-person labs. Based on how engaged students were with the assigned reading, I adjusted the amount of time I spent on the in-class lecture portion from week-to-week. In the future I am planning to change the Perusall reading assignments into online quizzes based on assigned reading. 

How the course is taught
Half flipped: students need to complete assigned reading before class and come to class prepared to do discussion/activities immediately.
Creative Commons License
Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share Alike CC BY-NC-SA